WELLINGTON COUNCIL WISHES TO RETAIN RONCOTAI AIRPORT

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 September 1947, Page 4

WELLINGTON COUNCIL WISHES TO RETAIN RONCOTAI AIRPORT

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 1. The Government is to be given three weeks to make up its mind whether the Rongotai airport is to be developed or discarded in favour of Paraparaumu. If it has not done so then, a deputation will demand that Rongotai be retained as the airport for the city. This was decided by the Wellington City Council today. The Mayor (Mr W. ■ Appleton), after reporting on a recent conference with the Government, said the scheme put forward by the City Engineer (Mr K. E. Luke) would prove cheaper in the long run. It provided for a new, ideal site for Rongotai College, which, it had already been agreed, must eventually be shifted. No move could be made till the college was shifted. Mr Appleton said they would give the Government three weeks in which to make a definite statement on its policy on Rongotai, and, if it did not do so, a monster deputation, including representatives of the Wellington City Council, the Mayors of Blenheim and Christchurch, the Chamber of Commerce, and other interested bodies should be organised to demand that Rongotai be retained as an airport, not only for’the city of Wellington but for the Dominion as a whole. The Mayor’s proposal to convene the deputation was unanimously approv-